


more than the sum of our parts

by Chiomi



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Astral Projection, F/M, Fandom Trumps Hate, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury, One Shot, Paralysis, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-27 12:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10021400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiomi/pseuds/Chiomi
Summary: They've defeated Hawkmoth and learned each other's identities and everything is going swimmingly until they actually hit the water.Marinette wakes up paralyzed. Recovery is a long road.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written as an auction prompt for Fandom Trumps Hate! Thank you to Baneismydragon for the beta. Remaining mistakes are my own.

It comes, of course, to a cathedral. This is Paris, with her love of high drama and profound sense of presence; nothing could come to a head or an end in some suburb or alley. No, it's Saint-Eustache Church, her rose windows letting sunlight slant over a cloud of white moths. It had taken so long to find him and run him to ground that Marinette is making choices about lycées before they finally find his hideout.

But their hard work and determination finally pays off, and it's a bright spring morning when they're able to race to the cathedral right after they've defeated an akuma. Chat has enough time to stay on the trail while Marinette feeds Tikki and catches up. He salutes her, gestures his avenue of pursuit, and disappears into an alley. She chases, and in just a few minutes Marinette swings around one of the pillars of the cathedral and into the Chapel of the Virgin. Only Hawkmoth is there, moths coalescing around him. "Found you," she says, profoundly satisfied. She lands on the floor of the chapel, one hand down on the ground to steady herself and the other extended to catch her yoyo. When it smacks into her palm, she stands, twirling her yoyo in a wide circle she knows from Youtube looks intimidating.

One of the stained glass windows behind him smashes inwards, shards falling like multicolored rain, and Chat Noir drops on the altar. It feels very sacrilegious, while at the same time inevitable. They're the heroes of Paris: they touch all parts of it, even the ones that are holy. The city and their own actions have given them that right.

A great noise starts up, momentous in its scope. Marinette has heard the pipe organ of Saint Eustace before, and dimly recognizes that someone must be practicing. Good. It will cover the noise they make.

The fight that follows is exhausting, and far more physical than their usual. There are no dramatic flights of magic, nothing between them and their quarry. Just the swirl of moths in the painted light and a man twice their size with power and training behind every blow. Marinette spends almost all of the fight in the air, dodging and going for aerial attacks and generally using the dramatic architecture to her advantage. Well, and flying back from blows that land harder than she can stand against, but there aren't so many of those that she can't keep fighting.

Eventually, though, they're all worn down, their breaths a ragged counterpoint to the music still swelling in from the main part of the church.

"It's over," she says quietly. "Give up your Miraculous."

Hawkmoth snarls, a low animal sound. "You foolish, foolish children."

"If we are, what does that make you?" Chat is attempting to sound laconic, but the effect is a little ruined by his heavy breathing. Not ruined enough to take the sting out of it, apparently, and she feels a surge of affection for Chat at the way Hawkmoth's face twists in even more grotesque rage.

Hawkmoth rips a brooch off his chest and throws it to the ground. A purple flash of light washes over the room, and the moths flutter like mad trapped things. They seem more upset by the light than they had even when almost squished during the fighting. Marinette flings a hand in front of her eyes to keep out both the blinding light and the panicking moths. When the light abates, Hawkmoth is gone, and so is the man he'd been under the costume.

On the floor lies the Butterfly Miraculous, beside it a dazed-looking purple kwami. Marinette is torn. She's still revved up and running on adrenaline, but the Miraculous is here, and they don't even know which direction Hawkmoth went. There are demonstrably other people in the church. The kwami blinks big, liquid eyes at her. Some of the fight goes out of her. It's over. They can take the Miraculous back to Master Fu and let him deal with the aftermath. Hawkmoth can't cause trouble anymore.

Chat is still rubbing his eyes as Marinette sweeps up both the brooch and the kwami. "Oh, I -" the kwami starts, but Is cut off. There's another flash of purple light, smaller and more contained than the first, and the kwami disappears back into the Miraculous. Marinette sighs. Definitely up to Master Fu to figure out the rest of this. The broken stained glass on the floor glitters in the sunlight, and Marinette sighs again. Even with Hawkmoth gone and the kwami out of her hands, their work isn't done. She grabs the can of silly string that was her lucky charm and tosses it into the air. "Miraculous Ladybug!"

Ladybugs swirl through the air, glass following them up to fill the windows. Everything goes back to exactly the way it was before except for the small detail of the butterfly Miraculous.

Emotionally and physically exhausted, Marinette lies down flat on the floor of the chapel, brooch held to her chest. Cleared of broken glass, it looks like an incredibly comfortable place for a nap. The aftermath of adrenaline always leaves her kind of shaky, and this is months and months worth of tension that she can just let go. She feels kind of flattened by the whole morning, not least the anticlimax of having no one but her and Chat here at the end. Her earrings beep, but she can't bring herself to care. There's probably a custodian somewhere in the building, or a curate. Whatever it's called when they're the person who looks after the old church before it opens. Plus the organist and Hawkmoth. They can't stay here forever. They either need to get out before their transformations wear off or get hidden until there are tourists to mingle with.

She can't bear to move at the moment. Chat seems to be on the same wavelength, as he usually is, and sags to the floor next to her.

Chat groans. "I don't want to move for the rest of the day."

"There will be tourists here in like an hour," she says. It's a terrible thought, because no matter which plan they go with, they need to not be laying on the floor when other people arrive.

"Then we'll move in an hour," Chat says firmly.

There's a faint rushing noise, and then another voice says, "I'm not moving at all. You get to carry me."

"As always," Chat says, amused. Or not Chat, since he has to be talking to his kwami. Whoever Chat is under the mask. When it came time, Marinette expected to have a lot of feelings about revealing their identities to each other, but she can feel a massive bruise coming up on her thigh already, and she's too tired and sore to have many feelings at all.

Her earrings beep their last, and her transformation releases. Summoning enormous force of will, Marinette turns her head towards Chat. His tousled blond hair is still familiar. For more than one reason. She blinks slowly at him. "Hi, Adrien."

He grins exhaustedly at her. "Hi, Marinette."

It feels like her life snapping into perfect alignment, and suddenly she's deliriously happy under the exhaustion. She smiles at him. "Want to get ice cream after we drop this off?" She raises the brooch slightly.

"I'd love to," he says, and his grin turns into something shyer.

She's holding the brooch in her right hand and he's lying to her left. Her left arm is lying akimbo between them, and it feels natural when his fingers twine with hers.

#

Their days seem beautifully sunny no matter what the weather does outside, but the sun does wax higher as the weeks go by. Then it's the first weekend of their last summer as a class. The whole class is going to Saint Tropez to stay at some hotel Mayor Bourgeois is contemplating buying. Chloe is condescending about the invitations, talking about stress-testing the hotel by inflicting barbarians on them, but it's still a really nice gesture.

To compound both aspects, Chloe gives Adrien the keys to one of the nicer suites, "Because there should be nothing but the best for you, Adrikins, and eventually you'll realize that."

Adrien slings an arm around Marinette's shoulder, which tugs her abruptly closer to him and away from the whispered commentary she and Alya had been exchanging. "Thanks, Chloe," he says, every evidence of sincerity in his voice and his smile. "We really appreciate that."

Chloe shoots Marinette a filthy look, then sniffs and flounces off, Sabrina in tow. She's less actively nasty than she was, but Marinette is still looking forward to being free of her in lycée.

Marinette kisses him on the cheek. They've only been dating a couple months, but everything between them feels natural and like it's already long-established habit. She's almost glad she never asked him out before they knew each other's secret identities: they wouldn't have felt nearly as at ease with each other. They wouldn't have been building on a foundation of trust solid as concrete and just as tried and tested. She reflects, as she and Alya get settled in one of the rooms of the suite, that it's been a pretty idyllic month, for innumerable reasons more than just the lack of akuma to fight.

"The port?" Alya suggests. They'd put together a bunch of ideas about what to do in Saint Tropez on the flight, because they don't intend to just sit on the beach all weekend. Sunbathing was great, but new surroundings demand more exploration than that.

"Yes!" Marinette grabs her sketchbook and pencil case. She might be mostly interested in one particular form of art, but that was no reason to limit herself. "Should we ask Nathanael to come with us?"

Alya shrugs. It turns into a production, with most of the class coming along to explore the old port. They pack a cafe to the brim when they stop for coffee and snacks, and it's a cheerful sort of chaos. Marinette feels herself unwinding slowly: the sun is warm and Saint Tropez doesn't feel like it could ever produce even a fraction of the brouhaha of Paris.

Adrien catches her hand when they're leaving, and they walk along the street with their fingers entwined. The sun beats down on them, and it feels like a perfect moment, the kind Marinette would like to capture forever in amber. She does the next best thing, and they take selfies with the ocean in the background.

#

The next morning, Marinette is relaxed enough that laying on the beach sounds like a fantastic idea. She and Adrien and Alya and Nino set up on one of the hotel's stretches of beach, and she gets Adrien to help put sunscreen on her back so she can actually enjoy the sun beating down on her. She kind of wishes there was privacy to get Tikki out on the beach, too, but Tikki and Plagg have their own private area on the suite's balcony, so they at least get to share in the glorious weather.

Marinette spends most of the morning luxuriating in the warm sun beating down on her back and legs, but being idle isn't in her nature. After lunch she and Adrien wander down the beach, lured by the water sports kiosks. One of them is renting out the fins for bodysurfing, and Marinette nudges Adrien, then nods towards it.

He grins his Chat-grin at her, eyes sparkling bright. She can't help but smile back. They patrol, sure, but they both know there's no reason for it anymore. This wouldn't even have putative purpose, and the ocean changes more and more frequently than the Paris skyline. They don't even need to discuss it: Adrien rents the equipment for the rest of the day. He casts a momentary glance back at where they left Nino and Alya, but it wouldn't be fair to anyone: Marinette and Adrien are both stronger and faster than they should be, now, even when they're not transformed. Having to hide that would take away half the fun. Besides, Nino and Alya can use the time alone: they're not even dating yet. They need to get on that.

Adrien and Marinette hit the water together, just the two of them. It takes a while to get the hang of it, but they push each other, race each other, tumble through the water and maybe, sometimes, when they surface, they kiss shyly, ocean water still running down their faces.

Marinette would be happy to do this all day and to come back the next and do it again. But the day is only waning towards late afternoon when she feels something go wrong. The way the wave is closing doesn't feel right. She hasn't been doing this long enough to know, she knows that, but her instincts tell her something is off. She hesitates, trying to pinpoint it, then decides to bail on the wave.

The hesitation was a mistake. She's known that for ages: when you're already in the air, there's no room for hesitation. You swing and you leap and you don't miss. You don't even let there be a possibility of missing your shot unless you have both feet on the ground.

Bodysurfing is different. Water seems like it should be more forgiving than the cobblestones of Paris. But it's not. Marinette's belated realization and entirely involuntary hesitation mean she hits the back of the wave wrong. She's buffeted around in a way that feels indefinably wrong, and the world swirls blue and the golden red of sunlight through closed eyelids. Angling towards where the back of the wave should be doesn't help, and Marinette is robbed of direction, even as much as up and down.

The sand comes at her from nowhere, far too fast to even think of avoiding. Marinette hits it with her shoulder, and it changes the way she's being buffeted. She doesn't even feel any kind of impact, but she can't tell anymore which pale direction is light and which is bottom. Kicking, she tries to assert some kind of agency, but the world is just blue and pale and red and blue and she's losing track of everything. Impatience giving way to a reflexive panic, Marinette surges forward as hard as she can, just needing to be away from the chaos. Her surge coincides with some conspiracy of the water, because she shoots forward, through the blue and suddenly directly towards one of the pale beacons. The world is blue and pale and red and then she hits and it was the wrong target. Marinette can tell, almost and distantly, that she hit it hard, that it's going to hurt. The blue is of the ocean around her is darker, deeper now, and red and red and red take over, seeping into the blue and taking everything down into the dark.

#

Marinette drifts for a period of time that feels disjointed and unreal enough that she's not sure how long it is. Sometimes it's bright, sometimes it's dark. It hurts a lot, but not anywhere below her ribs. Not even all her ribs hurt, though it seems like they should. Breathing is hard. Harder than it should be. Not like when she's been running and needs to catch her breath. Just like her body has turned to lead.

Or, no, not lead. Her body has turned to dead flesh. Incipient panic about that thought lurks around the edges of her mind, but there's not enough room at the forefront of her mind for it to take center stage. She can only manage to focus a very little, for very short periods of time. There's beeping. Machines. Probably a good thing that they keep beeping. Her mom is there. Adrien is there. Her hair is filthy. Then it isn't. Then it is again, or maybe still? Marinette can't tell - she's drifting. She doesn't smell saltwater anymore.

Her nose itches. Eventually, she will remember how to make her limbs work and scratch it. It seems like a silly thing to forget.

Sometimes the beeping changes, and then things tilt and shift like she's flying through the air but in slow motion. Nothing quite makes sense. Is it an akuma? No, it's - 

There's something. She doesn't want to think about it. It feels like a bruise in her brain. There's something funny there, in some kind of terrible way. Did Chat say something? No. For some reason when she tries to think of him and what he'd say, all she can bring to mind is his eyes, unmasked and wide and scared. Adrien. Adrien shouldn't look that unhappy. One more reason not to think about it until the floaty feeling goes away.

She tries to take a deep breath to clear her head. It doesn't work. It's so hard. It strikes her viscerally that the floaty feeling means something is wrong. Something is wrong and she needs to snap out of it and fight back.

Reality fades in slowly, and with it pain. A headache, her shoulders, her arms, her upper back. It fades out all at once, and she can recognize it as a painkiller kicking in. Okay. Making connections is good. And she can think about how she's thinking. That's what differentiates homo sapiens sapiens, right? Abstract thinking. Though a lot of her thinking has felt abstract. That's not the way it's meant, though, she thinks. At least not for sciency stuff. She likes the sciency history stuff. Oh no. It's so hard to think again.

She waits for reality to fade back in, but at least she's aware of waiting. It's kind of frustrating. She thinks aggressive and clear-headed thoughts, like it'll help. She pries her eyes open. It's hard. The ceiling is white. The beeping is machines. She's in the hospital. Adrien's with her. There was an accident. Sand? Sand. She'd hit her . . . everything. How is her mom there? Or is she back in Paris? She hope's she's back in Paris. There are bigger hospitals in Paris, and her parents wouldn't have to close the bakery.

Eventually, ages pass, and Marinette has enough wherewithal to open her eyes. Everything is hazy, and she tries to blink it into focus. Her eyelids are heavy, and every blink is effortful. The ceiling resolves. It's still very boring, but at least it's boring in focus.

Okay. One part of her working. She tries to take a deep breath, and it's hard, like her ribcage is constrained. She can't feel by what. She can't feel . . . much. Everything feels fuzzy because of whatever painkillers she's on, but it seems like it's something more profound than that. She tries to clear her throat to ask Tikki, but it's like swallowing around a tissue: soft and malleable but too dry and disgusting. Marinette tries harder to clear her throat, because gross. Her mother's face appears above her, looking tired and concerned, and Marinette can feel a straw against her lips. She swallows greedily, but her mom only lets her have a few scant sips before the straw is taken away.

Her mom brushes some of the hair off Marinette's forehead. "You're okay, sweetie. You're going to be okay. We just need to go slow while you're coming back to yourself."

Marinette pauses, then nods. It feels like an enormous effort.

#

The first time, Marinette falls quickly back to sleep, but having reached consciousness once, she's not giving it up. The next time she's awake, she feels more properly aware. She knows right off that she's in the hospital, that something terrible happened. She doesn't know what, though, and isn't sure if she's just not remembering or if the whole incident was that tumble in the ocean and she just needs someone to explain what it did to her. She has some dim idea that things should hurt more, but it hadn't hurt even in the water, had just been confusing. But now it has to be whatever is in her IV, whatever's making everything go fuzzy. Right?

She looks for Tikki the next time she's awake - listens for her, at least. She's so tired. Tikki is absent, but so is Adrien, and she has to trust that he's looking after her. He has practice keeping a kwami hidden, after all, and there are people in and out of her room all the time. A nurse comes in, neat locs clipped back from a distracted face. She looks up and starts, evidently not having expected Marinette to be awake, then hurries forward. "Are you feeling okay? Did your painkillers wear off?"

Marinette tries to shake her head, but it's hard, like something is in the way. Is there something on her neck? All her haptic feedback has gone haywire, so it feels like she's still adrift in her own body.

The nurse checks the drip anyway. "Your dad is just getting coffee, okay? Just your bad luck to wake up during the ten minutes a day you're alone."

"Ho - how long?" Marinette's voice sounds rusty.

"Five days, sweetie."

Five days!? She's never been in the hospital that long before. "What happened?"

The nurse pauses, something hesitant and foreboding in her expression. "I'll send the doctor in to talk to you when your dad is back."

Marinette's heart picks up, and the monitor betrays every anxious beat. The nurse looks at it, then hurries through the rest of a vitals check. The squeeze of the blood pressure band is a sharp sensation, one of the few things that feels quite real.

Her dad comes in, and he looks exhausted and worn down. That all falls away when he sees that her eyes have opened, and he beams at her, then takes the hand that has no machinery attached. "I'm so glad you're awake, honey. How do you feel?"

"Thirsty," Marinette says. Her dad helps her drink some water, but not enough to do much more than clear her throat.

A doctor comes in, then, and Marinette feels a terrible thrill of anticipation. She's young, and wouldn't seem menacing on her own, but - But. It's been five days. "Hey, Marinette. Good that you're awake!"

"What happened?"

Some of the determined cheerfulness fades from the doctor's expression. "Your boyfriend says it was a bodysurfing accident?"

"Yeah," Marinette says. "What happened?" It's very important, suddenly, that she have the whole picture. She doesn't like this fuzziness, doesn't like being vague about anything. Her brain is vague from painkillers, her very proprioception vague, so it's absolutely vital that she not be vague about what's going on.

The doctor takes a deep breath. "You hurt your spine. Pretty badly. You were Medevacced to Paris quickly, and so treatment was fast, so we're hopeful that the swelling will go down even more and give you more range of motion and sensation. Breathing should get easier. But there was significant damage at your C8 vertebra - do you know where that is?"

"No," Marinette says, not sure if it's an admission of ignorance or a flat denial of the whole situation. Her dad's hand tightens on her hand, and it occurs to her that she can't really feel his hand, just the pressure. She should be able to feel his callouses. 

"It's right at the bottom of your neck - that's why we still have you in a cervical collar, though we'll take that off as you're spending more time awake. It means -" she hesitates - "It means you might not get sensation back below your waist. You might not walk again." She hurries on, "That's the worst case scenario, of course. You're young and healthy. With rigorous physical therapy, we might be able to recover some function, and once all of the swelling and bruising has gone down, we'll be able to evaluate surgical options, too, and the technology is improving all the time." The doctor smiles, a practiced thing that seems like professional compassion plastered over the terrible, depressing truth. "In the meantime, as you start to recover we'll get you in a wheelchair so you can get your life back."

Marinette swallows hard, and tries to keep her face calm, but the heart monitor gives away her distress. She's paralyzed.

#

Breathing gets easier over the next few days. It's a shattering relief that she'll have at least that back. Some of the sensation comes back to her hands, and she focuses on flexing them far more than her physical therapist suggests. She's an artist, a designer, a seamstress. She can't not have her hands. And if Tikki's desertion isn't permanent, if she comes back - well, the yoyo requires dexterity, and there's no point being less than dextrous when she's back to being herself. Marinette is torn about Tikki's absence. Obviously it's better that she stay with Adrien than risk getting caught in the hospital, but she needs - she needs to know. Lack of certainty about what, exactly, the Miraculous can accomplish here hurts almost as much as the idea of her hands staying so useless. She hardly dares to hope, but she doesn't dare give up on hope completely. The Miraculous has repaired great swathes of Paris; surely it can repair an itty bitty cross-section of bone and nerve.

Marinette has been awake a week when Adrien first gets to visit. She can feel her face light up like the sun at the sight of him. Her parents have been with her, alternating their hours, and she hopes that they won't be hurt by her fresh enthusiasm for Adrien, but she's wanted to see for herself that he's okay, check with him about Tikki, and her parents can't quite give her that. He looks okay, mostly. He looks whole, but not like he's been getting a lot of sleep. Marinette's mother, whose turn it is, pats Marinette on the shoulder. "I'll go get some of that terrible coffee and let you two talk, okay?"

"Merci, mama," Marinette says.

Her mother leaves, and Tikki flies out, pressing her face to Marinette's cheek. "Oh, Marinette, I'm so sorry I couldn't come earlier."

"It's okay," Marinette murmurs, and she's abruptly close to tears. They still have her on morphine to ameliorate the pain in her neck from the accident and the phantom pain from her legs. She blames the morphine for the volatility of her emotions, these days. They don't feel fragile, exactly, but it's like instead of standing on solid ground, she's balancing on a tray on top of a hamster ball: everything is more likely to send her tipping over, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Adrien comes to sit next to her and laces their fingers together. It mostly emphasizes that she can't feel anything in her pinkie. "They were only letting family in. I'm glad I get to see you now, though."

"I'm glad to see you, too," Marinette says, smiling at him even though it makes her eyes come close to brimming over. She turns her attention to her kwami. "Tikki -" There's a lump in her throat, suddenly, all her hopes risen up and tangled in a hard hot ball to choke her. Marinette swallows painfully. "Tikki, can you fix this?"

Tikki's big blue eyes fill with tears, too. "Oh, Marinette."

Adrien edges the chair closer to the edge of the bed, and his exhausted, defeated mien makes sense. He'd have asked, of course, and if the answer had been yes he'd have broken in, subtlety and secret identities be damned.

"We can only heal damage caused by other Miraculous. This was - your accident - it was -"

"Completely mundane," Marinette finishes, and they're the last words she can say. She's held tears at bay for days and days on this slim hope, on determination and will alone. She can't anymore, and her desperation and despair come out on a wracking sob.

If she could, she'd curl up in a ball to bawl her eyes out, but she can't, and that's the point, isn't it. She brings the hand that's not in Adrien's up to cover her face as her tears well up and run down into the hair at her temples.

Adrien crawls into bed next to her, and it's probably a tight fit, but she can't feel if her hip is pressing up against the bed rail. He slides one arm under her shoulders and brings their joined hands up to his chest and just holds her as she cries. She can't even turn into him, can't roll to her side with any kind of control, can just cry up at the ceiling as he holds her. His comforting warmth only extends to her arm and part of her side, and that makes it worse in some ways, and she sobs until she can't anymore, and then falls into an exhausted sleep.

#

Two weeks later, and again Adrien is holding her hand. Marinette can only feel parts of it, but the fact that she can feel him at all is a relief. She takes another deep breath for the doctor.

"Okay," the doctor says. "It looks like your autonomic functions are in good shape, just like we hoped they'd be at this point. You should be good to get out of here in a couple days, assuming accommodations have been finalized at home." She looks at Marinette's parents. "I know you were talking to contractors. Were you able to get that taken care of?"

"Actually," Sabine says, "we meant to discuss this with Marinette. But - yes, there are accommodations. We'd like to be able to take her home."

"Okay," she says again. "I'll leave you to discuss it. One of the nurses should be by in about a half hour with lunch." She leaves, shutting the door behind her.

Adrien clears his throat awkwardly. "We didn't mean to leave you out of the discussion, Marinette, but you were in PT when it came up. Since you, uh, needed to go up a ladder to get to your room, and my place has an elevator, we talked to my dad."

Tom takes Marinette's other hand, careful around the pulse oximeter and accompanying wire. "We've started looking for a new location for the bakery, honey, because we want you home with us. But I don't think where we are now will work, no matter what we try to install."

Marinette hadn't even thought of that. She feels the blood drain from her face. One little accident, and even her home is taken from her. It's not fair.

Sabine joins in, and it feels like they've been plotting against her. "Sweetie, M. Agreste has said he'd be more than happy to have you, and it turns out he already has accessible bathrooms, and is willing to do more conversions if you need them."

Sabine rests her hand on Marinette's ankle, the way she'd used to do when they were both curled up on the couch together. Marinette can see it, but not feel it. Tears rise up unexpectedly, and she has to try very hard to blink them back. Her hands are taken, and even if they weren't they barely obey her these days. "So we're moving in with Adrien?"

There's a terrible pause. Marinette knew there would be. She's not on all the much morphine anymore, so she can think things through again, even if she hadn't, yet. Not with this. Her parents have a business to run. And because they run their own business, because they're a generally healthy family, they don't have supplemental insurance. Marinette has no idea what her hospital stay is costing them - has no frame of reference, even, because traumatic injury might or might not count as long-term illness. And she knows all the horror stories she's heard are American or Chinese. Things are better in France, but still - they must have had the bakery closed a lot, with how much they've been here. And there will be physical therapy and a wheelchair and - and, and, and. They won't be at Adrien's with her. Especially not if they want to relocate the bakery for her.

Sabine's hand moves. Marinette thinks it's supposed to be a reassuring squeeze. It's terrible. "I'll come for a few days, baby. And we'll visit whenever we can. But we want to be able to relocate as soon as possible so you can move back home. Is that okay?"

Marinette is very aware of Adrien at her side, Adrien who she'll be able to spend more time with, who loves her and has been trying to arrange things to make her life easier. "Yes, of course." It's the only possible answer.

#

When Gorilla picks them up in an accessible van, it finally occurs to Marinette how lucky she is to have a boyfriend who's a supermodel, whose dad is a fashion icon. A boyfriend with money. Everything is so much easier than it might have been. Marinette hasn't been thinking about how easy things are, because she's still paralyzed. She can't feel anything below her waist and somehow she still hurts all over. She has months of physical therapy to look forward to if she's ever going to walk again, and even that's not certain. The trauma counselor has given way to a regular therapist - a new therapist she has to lie to about basically her whole life, which negates any usefulness and just makes therapy an exercise in frustration. Things are hard enough. The idea of them being harder is unbearable. She leans over - way over, the arm of her wheelchair in the way - and kisses Adrien on the cheek.

He quirks an eyebrow at her, surprised but pleased, and she shakes her head. Adrien shrugs infinitesimally and leans over to kiss her on the cheek, too.

They make their way through the traffic to his house, and Gorilla pulls in to a garage Marinette had never needed to notice before. Her dad grabs the suitcase full of the things that have slowly accumulated in the hospital over the last few weeks. Marinette determinedly pulls on her bike gloves. She's in a bright pink manual chair, because that's what she'd wanted even if the haptic feedback from her hands isn't everything she could wish for. The gloves should help make sure she doesn't sustain any damage she can't feel, and at least this way she still has some agency: more, at least, than she'd have had if her locomotion consisted of moving a controller rather than as much of her body as she can currently control.

Between her and Gorilla, it doesn't take long for her to be wheeling away from the van. She smiles at him, and he neither smiles nor says anything, but nods at her before he starts closing up the van. Adrien's hovering by the door: they've been negotiating boundaries carefully, and mostly without talking about them. "The elevator's this way."

"Okay," she says, and follows him.

Her room is one floor up, and it has an en-suite bathroom with all the railings she could want and a bench in the shower. It's kind of cold, a little impersonal, but just the way everything in the Agreste house is, not the way the hospital was. Her dad is already unpacking her framed selfie with Alya onto the desk.

#

Marinette had thought that sharing a house with one of her idols would be intimidating, but Gabriel Agreste doesn't treat her presence as a result of hospitality he's extending, as a result of tragedy, as anything out of the ordinary or even anything new. In fact, the only acknowledgement he makes that she hasn't always lived there is a brief conversation where he checks that Nathalie has provided her with a list of house rules and tells her to let Nathalie know if any further structural changes need to be made.

They do, of course, as Marinette discovers slowly. Her traitorous hands are hell on glassware, but she doesn't need to even mention that to Nathalie: in her quietly efficient way, Nathalie just ensures that there are a variety of thick plastic glasses available. It almost makes it worse, to have someone paying that close attention to what Marinette can and can't do. She acknowledges to herself, though, that the whole situation would be worse if it were her parents: they'd be paying the same attention, but they'd have feelings about it, would be compassionate and affectionate. Nathalie Sancoeur is aptly named: she doesn't appear to have a heart, or at least not one that contains anything like pity. Marinette likes her more now than she thinks she would have if they'd spent as much time together before - before. She's easier to talk to than M. Agreste, too, so it's Nathalie Marinette asks when she wants to know if she can friends over. She knows Adrien's social life is restricted, but Marinette hasn't seen anyone but her parents and Adrien's household and medical professionals in weeks, and it's maddening, especially now that she's settled into something of a routine with the physical therapy.

Nathalie acquiesces, and Marinette immediately video calls Alya.

#

One of the benefits of finally being out of the hospital is that Marinette finally has access to a tablet rather than just her phone. It's so frustrating to use that she could almost cry, but she's decided she's done with that. Self-pity is for when there's no more hope, for when she's given up, and she refuses to. Her life isn't over, just different, and she's Ladybug, for god's sake. She can handle different. Tikki's a good reminder that Marinette can handle whatever is thrown at her, even the loss of one of her dreams. Tikki's also good at helping with the tablet.

Catching up on her seemingly endless email, Marinette is surprised to note that there's a design contest she'd registered for that's still upcoming. She'd finished the designs themselves before the accident, of course, but had never gotten around to sewing them. She flexes her hands, which seem to have given up all pretense at fine motor control, and sighs. Like, at least she can use her hands. Though her legs had always just been useful, her hands had been clever, so even though they're still useful, having them stripped of their cleverness continues to sting. Trying to sew the designs would probably just be an exercise in frustration. Still, she doesn't delete the email, just leaves it there as a sort of reminder.

The emails that surprise her are the ones from the Ladyblog update feed: she'd known Adrien had kept up with patrols, albeit at a reduced level, but she hadn't known there was anything for Alya to really report on. When she opens one of the posts, she nearly drops the tablet. There's an akuma that Chat had taken on alone just a week ago. There aren't supposed to be akuma anymore. They defeated Hawkmoth, gave Nooroo back to Master Fu, and that was supposed to be the end of their arch-enemy. Why hadn't he told her? "Tikki, did you know about this?"

Tikki avoids Marinette's gaze. "I cleansed the akuma after Chat Noir brought it back to me."

"Why didn't you tell me?" The question is anguished, because Marinette knows that she can't help, not like this, but she at least deserved to know, didn't she?

"We didn't want you to worry," Tikki says quietly.

Marinette laughs harshly. "Right, of course, because that's one more thing I can't handle, right?"

"Mari-"

"I'm sorry, Tikki, I can't right now. I just - can't. I'll bring you cookies later, but right now I just need to be alone."

She goes outside into the cleansing sun and just wheels around the perimeter of the house as fast as she can, nearly skidding on the gravel of the garden paths. She needs to find some way to get back her life.

#

Alya is the first to visit Marinette at Adrien's, as is only appropriate. She comes in like a cannonball and hugs Marinette right off the bat, squeezing her shoulders as hard as she can and almost falling into Marinette's lap. "I've missed you so much, girl!"

Marinette squeezes her right back. "I've missed you, too. C'mon, we'll go to the living room, I've got snacks." She spins the chair and leads Alya down the hall.

Alya's watching her hands, and it makes Marinette feel kind of self-conscious, though she knows it's a big change for someone who hasn't seen her since before. Alya realizes she's been caught looking and smiles guiltily. "I'm surprised you're wearing boring gloves."

Marinette makes a face. "They protect my hands. I've tried knitting a pair, but working with small yarn and needles hasn't been going well, and my tension's all off. So, boring gloves it is."

A shadow passes over Alya's face, fathoms deep but gone in seconds. "We have to go shopping, then. This is Paris - there has to be some kind of shop with fashionable fingerless gloves."

"That would be awesome," Marinette says, and can't keep back a grin.

Alya throws herself down on the couch, props her head on a throw pillow, and says, "Okay, on to important stuff. You have missed so much gossip."

Alya has managed to keep up with what everyone's doing, even Chloe and Sabrina, who Marinette knows she won't have actually deigned to speak to. She knows exactly where everyone is going to lycée, and that gives Marinette the opening she'd been half-looking for. Her admission to the same lycée general as Alya and Nino and Adrien and half of the rest of their class hasn't been compromised by her paralysis, but university afterward is going to stay competitive, and Marinette doesn't want to give up on her dream entirely.

"There's a design contest coming up that's judged directly by ESMOD, and I entered and I have the designs, but I can't sew. Would you be willing to help?"

"Of course," Alya says, like it's a foregone conclusion. "Let me message the others - we'll get everyone to pitch in."

Marinette wheels over to the couch and hugs Alya again.

#

Marinette has to actually communicate with Gabriel to get the sewing party set up and approved. He looks down at her along his long, aquiline nose, then nods. "Of course. Send me a list of the fabrics you need, and I'll have them set up in the sewing room. Your little friends can work in there. If the serger is required, notify Nathalie and I will have an assistant sent over."

Marinette's kind of floored. She hadn't expected that kind of offer. He's seemed vaguely more accessible now than when she first met him, but she'd put it down to actually having physical access to him. This is wildly generous, though. "I can get my own fabric -" she starts.

Gabriel's lips thin. "Yes, quite. Well, come into the office, then, and take your pick, but I don't want you underfoot longer than a few hours."

"I meant -"

"Were you suggesting that you go out and pay retail?" he inquires, faintly aghast and decidedly imperious.

"No, sir. Thank you, sir."

#

Almost the whole class shows up to what Alya's calling sewing boot camp. Sabrina and Chloe are notable absences, but Marinette hadn't really expected them to show up anyway. Max has brought a projector, and Marinette realizes when Nathanael shows up what they have planned. She makes Alya come over and hug her, burying her face in Alya's neck as she tries to fight down tears. They're going to be able to bring her designs to life.

Adrien helps Nino and Max set up Marinette's laptop, the one she's barely been able to use because the keys are too close together to use reliably but that still has all of her designs from before, while Marinette shows Kim, Rose, and Alix how to use the sewing machines. She can sort of run the machine, with the foot pedal put in her lap and her forearm used to stabilize the cloth as she pulls it through from the back. Rose, at least, has sewn before, so she's able to show them a more standard approach to guiding the material through. She has them practice sewing along a guideline, and it's going well until a bobbin needs to be replaced. Rose needs to take over, then, because Rose can replace the bobbin. It's a top-load Singer, so it's not even like it's complicated, it's just that it's small, and Marinette can't even get the bobbin oriented right to drop in.

She turns back to where Nathanael and Juleka are tracing the patterns from her laptop onto drafting paper taped to the wall. "Wow, you guys work fast!"

Nathanael blushes faintly. "Well, you've got nice clear lines and scale already marked, so it's pretty easy."

Adrien checks in with her about fabric, and Marinette feels kind of like a general marshaling her troops. It's not the same meditative and sensual experience as doing her sewing herself, but her designs are still coming into being. Nino comes up next to her, carrying a couple boxes full of pins. "You don't know what this means to me," she says to him.

Nino smiles down at her. "I've got some idea. You know we love you, right?"

She smiles back at him.

Over the next few hours, things start to come together, patterns cut and pinned and then the same done to cloth. One of the designs just isn't working, the jacquard Marinette had picked looking far more boxy and stiff than intended, but everything else is starting to look like exactly what she'd wanted.

Adrien slips out sometime during the afternoon, and Alya retires from the field of battle to fuss and obsess over her phone, but everyone else stays focused far longer than Marinette would have expected. The finish with functional items of clothing that actually look like what she'd designed, and Marinette clasps her hands over her mouth, close to tears. "Thank you guys so much."

Juleka swishes the skirt she's modeling. "This was a lot of fun."

Nathalie chooses that moment to sweep in. "Dinner is waiting for all of you in the dining room."

#

Adrien slips back in during dinner, looking slightly the worse for wear. He excuses himself as having had a 'thing,' and his smile is so guileless that no one questions him further. The whole group of them pack into the entertainment lounge after - and how ridiculous is it that the Agreste mansion has one of those? - and watch a movie, most of them piled haphazardly on sofas and armchairs.

Marinette can't, of course, but she pulls her chair to a stop next to where Adrien's pressed up against the arm of one couch, and Alya takes the armchair next to her. Once they're all focused on the movie, she leans over to Adrien and murmurs, "Did you get the akuma to Tikki?"

"Safe and sound, my lady," he murmurs back, and squeezes her hand, harder than he would have a few months ago.

"I wish I could help," she says, something she doesn't let herself say every time. But in this group, in this room, it can't turn into a long discussion, so it's safe to say. He won’t look at her in that terrible stricken way he does sometimes. They both know all there is to say: he’s better with her, they love each other regardless of whether they’re fighting side by side, she’s still Ladybug even though she can’t fight and he still thinks she’s amazing. It’s a well-trodden conversation.

Adrien just kisses the back of her hand. He doesn't let go of her until the credits roll.

#

She goes to see Master Fu, because she's out of other options and she finally has the energy and wherewithal to do so. She wheels herself, because it's not something she wants to ask Gorilla about. She has no real legitimate reason to know Fu. So she gets there on her own, hot and annoyed between the summer sun and the asphalt heating her wheels.

He looks only very faintly surprised to see her. "How is your cat?"

"I need your help," she says abruptly in return.

He smiles sadly, and his eyes flicker to the chair. "Come in. We will have tea."

Master Fu shows her in, then bustles around making tea. A green kwami emerges from the kitchen area and waves cheerfully at Marinette. "Do you know where an akuma comes from?"

"Um." Marinette gets the feeling she's being tested. "When someone is at a really low point, Hawkmoth sends out a corrupted butterfly and makes a deal with them: magic powers in exchange for the Miraculous. Also I think there's some brainwashing involved."

He brings out a pot of tea, the strainer still sitting in it, and sets it down on the low table Marinette won't really be able to reach. "When an akuma is born, they are taking the inner monster of their victim and wearing it on the outside."

"But - I mean, Alya's not a monster." None of her classmates are monsters, not really, not deep down. Even Chloe has redeeming qualities. Marinette knows, absolutely, in her bones, that being akumatized doesn't reflect any kind of overwhelming inner truth. Hawkmoth took - takes, maybe? where are the new akuma coming from? - advantage of weak moments. Everyone has them, and they aren't bad in and of themselves.

"No, child. But everyone carries a monster inside them, all their ugly thoughts and prejudices and insidious hatred. Even you and I. What is important is that we all carry a hero, as well, something that shines bright against the darkness." He brings a tray over with four cups: two regular sized and two tiny, almost doll-sized.

Marinette nods, mollified. It makes sense - she's seen The Emperor's New Groove, with the different Kronks. Tikki flies out from Marinette's purse and hugs Master Fu's kwami. Apparently they're done pretending to be anything but what they are.

"Your inner hero shines brighter than most. It's why you make a good Ladybug. But with current circumstances being what they are" - he pauses long enough that it's clear he won't explicitly mention the wheelchair, but not long enough that Marinette can say anything - "we need to find a different way you can make that light shine."

It hurts, because Marinette's been trying. She's been spending time with her friends, been talking to her parents, been cheerful and kind as she can with all of them. "I -"

"I am not impugning your art or your kindness or the strength of your friendships," Fu says firmly, addressing her thoughts uncannily well as he fills her teacup. "But those are ordinary lights, even if they are strong ones. Creativity and kindness - producing beauty in the world - are light to combat everyday darkness. Since the darkness of akuma is miraculous, so must your light be."

"I can't exactly swing from rooftops," Marinette says, frustrated.

"Ah, but that is not your only option, if Tikki remembers how to perform a feat she hasn't been called on to perform in many, many years."

Tikki pipes up, "Akuma come from inner darkness, so this will need to come from you inner light! I won't be putting stuff on the outside anymore."

A thread of panic jolts through her. Tikki would leave her? She'd said that the wheelchair didn't change that she was Ladybug, but . . .

Fu sips his tea, radiating calm. "We will begin, and see what can be accomplished. It will be difficult, but Ladybugs have overcome difficulty before."

"How?" She asks, anguish seeping into her voice. She tries so hard to keep it hidden, because she's tired of pity from herself as much as anyone else.

"Astral projection," Fu says with great relish, and finishes his tea.

#

It's not that easy, of course.

Marinette has never meditated before. The closest she's come is the very few times she's gone to the midnight Christmas Eve Mass with her dad. But Fu wants her to be able to still herself and focus on her breathing, as if focusing on her breathing doesn't emphasize how little else she can feel of her own body. But it's something her body can't stop her from doing. She can throw herself into it without hitting limits that hadn't been there before. These limits - limits on her concentration and patience and ability to be still - have always been in her, even if she hasn't run up against them before. Run. Even in the privacy of her own head, everything circles back to her spine.

She breathes, and pushes everything else out of her head.

It takes weeks, weeks of just that, before she gets anywhere.

But Marinette is still Ladybug. Succeeding in the face of overwhelming odds is kind of her thing; she's Paris' lucky charm. It takes weeks, but she doesn't stop pushing.

Wayzz, Fu's kwami, helps some, mostly in that he's endlessly willing to sit with her in Fu's back room, even when Fu is with customers. But mostly he just manages to rock her to the core when he lets slip, in quiet conversation with Tikki, that he's really glad Master Fu sent Nooroo back to his former wielder.

“Why on Earth would he do that?” she asks, and she’s starting to feel some of the same righteous anger that she’s been missing for a while.

Wayzz shrugs expressively for a creature with such tiny shoulders. “Monsters were getting out other ways. Paris is far less prone to hate crimes when there are akuma running around, and with a Ladybug around, the damage is far more easily repairable.”

The shaking vibrant edge of rage makes it hard to meditate, but Marinette throws herself into it harder, because if it’s a challenge she will rise to it, and she won’t let Chat suffer because of the whims of their pseudo-mentor. With all the work they’d done to get Nooroo from Hawkmoth in the first place.

Wayzz interrupts her train of thought. “He did speak to Hawkmoth first, of course. With Nooroo. There shouldn’t be the same kind of vicious edge on the akuma this time. Hawkmoth has . . . made peace with his limitations.”

“Great,” Marinette says from between clenched teeth.

#

Apparently anger was the missing ingredient in her meditation, because Marinette manages to step outside her body and into a projection of herself shortly after. It’s exhausting to maintain in a way that’s not at all physical, but she manages it.

She tells Master Fu, rather stiffly, that they’ll practice from home from now on. He might think his reasons are good, but it’s not his loved one getting beaten up by the akuma. Marinette practices at home, and it’s easy to fit into her schedule: physical therapy until her body is wiped out, astral projection until her mind is, too, then TV or hanging out with Adrien if he doesn’t have work or some other scheduled activity. One of her parents is over for dinner at least four nights a week, and they keep her updated on the search for a new location for the bakery. They’ve found a place, apparently, and it should be move-in ready by late fall, between the renovations for industrial baking and accessibility.

There’s an akuma at least once a week, and it’s kind of maddening, but Marinette is feeling less maddened now that she has something to work towards, something that will let her help.

#

It’s not until after Assomption that Marinette can maintain the astral form long enough to feel like showing it off. She’s just itching for an akuma, now. Keeping this secret from Adrien has been hard, but she hasn’t wanted to tell him about half-measures. When he gets a notification on his phone during one of their TV dates and has to excuse himself, Marinette gets a thrill of adrenaline, and smiles at him brilliantly to send him on his way.

She doesn’t waste any time once he’s away, wheeling into her room and closing the door to assure her privacy. Transforming and then falling into a meditative trance takes a while, though less than it used to, so she’s not surprised when she orients herself to the spectral call of the other half of her soul and zips towards it, lighter than air.

It’s not quite like seeing, like this, but Chat Noir and the akuma are still vivid to her senses. Chat Noir’s shocked pleasure is a visceral sensation. “My Lady! How -?”

“Not now, Chaton - we’ve got an akuma to vanquish!”

He doesn’t waste any time, and soon has the infected item separated from its owner. This is the part Marinette hasn’t had a chance to practice, really, but she takes the item in her hands-that-aren’t and doesn’t even have to break it. She cups the item to her chest and presses inward, aware of the way the item flickers darkly and then gives way in a flash of purple and red.

She knows they’re victorious, but she can’t hold on to this shape anymore, this distance, and falls back to her body. In her wake she knows an item falls to earth and a purified butterfly flies away.

Back in her body, she holds a spotted copy of the item in her hand, and throws it softly in the air, calling, “Miraculous Ladybug!”

Ladybugs swirl around it and through her windows and out into the city, and Marinette says, “Spots off,” just to have someone rejoice with her.

Only a few minutes later, Chat Noir vaults into her room, completely bypassing the rest of the house. “Mari! That was amazing! How - when - what even was that?”

She raises a teasing eyebrow at him. “What, no fist bump?”

He laughs wildly and bends down to kiss her soundly instead as his transformation at last wears off. “Every part of you is a miracle,” he says. “Now tell me everything.”

#

It’s only a week later that Marinette moves in to her new home, the renovations having been completed earlier than expected. She has a room there that she can wheel to, and it has windows almost as big as her old room, though not so many of them.

She leaves from her new home to her first day of lycée. As she faces down the big main stairs that she’ll have to circumnavigate every day, she thinks that whatever challenges it throws at her, she can handle them.

After all, she’s Ladybug.


End file.
